Friend of shooting victim haunted by memories, PTSD
This weekend has been very frustrating, watching and reading about the shootings in El Paso and Dayton. They are frustrating for because it makes me think about the night that I watched my friend die in front of me.
That night last summer, my friend and I went out to our favorite bar in Lake Mary to watch a game, have a couple of drinks and maybe meet a sweet girl. At the end of the night, as we did our last shot with our friends outside, I noticed a group of people moving like a ball of fish around food from one bar to the parking lot area, then heard what most of us thought were firecrackers.
Suddenly, two louder bangs and cracks went through the air. We all dropped to the ground and when we got up we noticed our friend wasn’t getting up. My friend died right away, as a stray bullet randomly went through his eye into his brain.
July 8, 2018, at 2:06 a.m. is a time I will always remember because it’s when I called 911 and had to describe what happened — what I was seeing coming out of my friend’s eyes and nose as someone was trying to revive him as ambulances arrived.
I deal with post-traumatic stress disorder now. I know that because of this weekend’s pointless shootings there will be others that have to deal with PTSD. Nobody will hear about how the survivors will see those events in their minds over and over and how it’s going to change them as a whole.
You won’t hear about the thousands of dollars that’s spent on therapy that may or may not work. I went to six sessions and quickly spent over a thousand dollars. For me, the therapy hasn’t really worked and I still see some part of that night every day as it creeps into my thoughts. You learn to deal with that over time, but the most frustrating part is you know you can’t feel or look at life the way you did before the shooting.
Finally to President Trump, the Senate, and Congress, it’s frustrating because while you play the blame game — blaming the National Rifle Association, video games, hate, mental issues and lack of background checks to buy guns, nothing is getting done to solve the massive problem of gun violence.
To those people — Republicans and Democrats — who think their guns are going to be taken away: no, they are not! Even after so many tragedies, you still have guns because of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.
But it’s time to stop being scared of losing votes and blaming everyone and using excuses to not take some type of action to update gun laws.
Common sense says that an update won’t stop all shootings but if we can stop some that’s better than sitting back and doing nothing. So to all please address the issues and meet in the middle, finally take action and show the country that you care.
The author lives in Heathrow.